Isn’t it exceedingly odd that members of this powerful group most vocal in defending the rights of teen Trayvon Martin’s killer did not lift their voice to defend a woman who was abused by her husband and stood her ground without killing or hurting anyone?

That gun rights groups who put up defense money and offered more money for the acquitted Zimmerman to purchase himself a new gun, did not go to battle for an abused woman who was exercising her Second Amendment rights as well as her Stand Your Ground rights?

Why isn’t the NRA using Marissa Alexander in ads all across the country? Where is Wayne LaPierre’s slogan "It takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy"? For in this case it did stop a bad guy and no one died.

In fact, one would think this case would be championed by all the avid protectors of the Second Amendment who love to take to television, radio, the Internet and every other horse-and-buggy show to fiercely defend every American’s right to bear arms, while attacking President Obama for being the Grim Reaper of all this country holds dear, assault rifles and all.

A 6-year-old girl died today after suffering a gunshot wound to the head Tuesday, Warren County Coroner Doug L. Huskey said.
Jamerica Ragsdale was shot in her grandmother's home in Warren County west of Vicksburg. A 16-year-old male living with the family, was handling a .22 caliber pistol when it discharged. The bullet went through the wall into the room where Jamerica was standing. "Yeah it was an accident," said Nikia Ragsdale, Jamerica's uncle. "But he shouldn't been playing with guns."
The teenage shooter was not identified. It is not known if he is related to the family.
"At this time the 16-year-old is being detained in youth detention for possession of a handgun by a minor," said Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace. "As this investigation continues all that information will be presented to the Warren County Youth Court to see if any charges are applicable to the injury of the child." Police are also investigating where the teen got the gun.
Jamerica was pronounced dead today at 1:36 a.m. at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

The Columbia County Sheriff's Office confirms the gun was stolen from an unlocked Dodge parked on Fairfax Street in Martinez the Thursday before the shooting.

On Nov. 11, the Richmond County Sheriff's Office responded to 2560 Andorra Drive to find 18-year-old Delarrion Smith with a gunshot wound to the chest. Smith later died from his injuries at GRU.

Witnesses told deputies Smith picked up Suillivan and that the two were close friends.They said once Sullivan got into the vehicle, he began horseplaying with Smith.

According to the sheriff's office, Smith pulled out a handgun and pointed it at Sullivan in a playful manner. Sullivan grabbed the gun and removed the magazine then pointed the gun at Smith and pulled the trigger believing the handgun was unloaded.

Sullivan has been charged in relation to this incident with involuntary manslaughter, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime and pointing a firearm at another.

You see what's missing? No mention of the owner of the gun who left it in an unlocked car. I suppose these guys subscribe to the Greg Camp theory of single-responsibility when someone steals a gun. The victim of the theft can never be looked at, it would be like blaming a woman for her own rape, after all.

In reality, when someone owns a gun and fails to keep it safely stored they are responsible for that. The thief is responsible for the stealing but the gun owner is responsible for the failure to practice safe storage of their gun.

Why is that so difficult for the gun-rights fanatics? Do they really condone leaving a gun in an unlocked car? Why can't they admit that many gun owners are adding to the problem by this kind of sloppy behavior?

This is good news for the gun nuts. In cases like this they don't have to embarrass themselves with cold-hearted ratios and rates of child deaths to the total number of guns in the country. That's what they do when little Johnny finds dad's gun and kills himself or his little sister. In these cases they can simply point out it was criminals doing their thing and the resultant damage that happens.

The one thing they will never admit is that proper gun control would lessen the number of these tragic incidents. First they say, the gun accidents are too few to worry about, then they say the inner-city violence that kills kids is not their fault and gun control cannot prevent it.

Both are lies. Gun accidents that harm kids are not too few to worry about and proper gun control laws would have a direct impact on criminal gun activity for the simple reason that all guns start out the legal property of lawful gun owners. Proper legal constraints on those legal gun owners would make guns harder to get in the gang and drug circles where they are plentiful now.

Now, what she actually said was quite different. She said the behavior of the bullying open-carry fanatics is something the Talabin would approve of, not our Founding Fathers. She did not say the open-carry idiots were the Talaban or were like the Talaban or were equal to them.

I often pose the question which comes to mind again. Why, if the gun-rights folks have "right" on their side, do they so often have to lie?

A new study, coauthored by a libertarian-aligned economist, has found strong evidence that the spread of gun ownership around the United States is a threat to public health. Guns, this research suggests, really do cause people to kill themselves when they wouldn’t otherwise.

Alex Tabarrok, one of the study’s two authors, isn’t anyone’s idea of a progressive. Tabarrok teaches at George Mason University, a famously libertarian-inclined economics department. He’s a fellow at the libertarian Mercatus Institute and one of the lead authors of Marginal Revolution, one of the web’s most famous libertarian-inclined blogs.

Tabarrok and his coauthor, Justin Briggs, put together a bunch of data on gun ownership and suicide. After controlling for a series of potentially confounding factors, Tabarrok and Briggs ran a series of regressions to establish any links between guns and suicides.

But wouldn’t people who don’t have guns just kill themselves in some other way? No, according to Tabarrok and Briggs. “The [gun-suicide remains significant,” they report, “despite also finding significant evidence that gun ownership causes substitution towards gun-suicide rather than other methods of suicide.” Tabarrok breaks this down further: “when gun ownership decreases we see a big decrease in gun-suicide and a substantial but less than fully compensating increase in non-gun suicide.” So, in the end, there’s “a net decrease in the number of suicides.”

As Tabarrok and (also libertarian) Megan McArdle note, this is entirely consistent with what we know about suicide. Far from being a well-thought out plan, suicide is often an impulsive decision rather than a rational choice to end one’s life. In one study McArdle takes a look at, researchers followed up with group of people who were prevented from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. They found that the majority didn’t attempt suicide again — rather, they made one terrible decision and thankfully survived.

Guns are designed to kill people. That makes it easier for people who own them to succeed in killing themselves, even if, like the Golden Gate jumpers, it turns out they don’t really want to die. That’s the underlying logic behind Tabarrok and Briggs’ grisly finding.

Arguing for the motion will be Alan Dershowitz, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and Sanford Levinson, Professor of Law and of Government at the University of Texas; David Kopel, Research Director of the Independence Institute, and Eugene Volokh, Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law will argue against the motion. More information can be found at http://f4a.tv/HorwCc

The stream will be interactive with a Twitter feed, where you and your readers can join the discussion around this controversial topic. If you are unable to watch live, the debate will be available to watch on-demand shortly after the event.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions, and I hope you'll join us for this lively debate!

Smart guns are firearm equipped with electronic radio frequency or biometric scanners that disable themselves when not in the right hands. Without the pre-selected RFID tag or palm or fingerprint scan, the guns will not fire.

Although it’s well-meaning safety mechanism, in the end most Americans don’t trust the existing technologies and would be opposed to a smart gun mandate.

You know what's funny about this? Gun-rights fanatics insist that the million-dollar cost associated with 3D metal printing will soon be so reduced that it'll be available to every idiot with an internet connection but smart gun technology is out of the question.

Police in Wilkesboro are looking for the man who they say accidentally fired a gun in a store during a discussion on the Second Amendment. The incident happened Tuesday evening in the GNC store on Winkler Street. Police say the man pulled out his gun to show an employee when he accidentally shot a printer. According to the police report, the man told the store employee he "could not go down for this," and left.
Anyone with information should call the Wilkesboro Police Department at (336) 667-7277.

CBSPolice have identified the man they believe killed three Iranian-born musicians and then himself early Monday as Ali Akbar Mahammadi Rafie, 29.Rafie, who had played in a Brooklyn-based band of Iranian nationals called the Free Keys "was upset that he wasn't in the band anymore," said New York Police Department spokesman John McCarthy. Investigators suspect the shooter and his former bandmates may have had an argument over money, he added.

The rampage erupted when the gunman climbed over an adjoining roof to the home, then down to a third-floor terrace where he opened fire through a window, killing the 35-year-old Eskandarian. The shooter then killed Arash Farazmand, 28, in a third-floor bedroom and Soroush Farazmand, 27, in a second-floor bedroom while he was on a bed using his laptop computer, police said.

The fourth tenant was hit in the arm before Rafie and his former bandmate struggled over the gun until the clip fell out, police said. Rafie put the clip back in the rifle, went back to the roof and shot himself in the head, police said.

"People don't own guns in Iran," he said. "We don't have this problem there. It doesn't exist."

One of the most important factors to consider when debating the right to carry weapons outside the home is public safety. A recent study by the American Medical Association has concluded that there is a strong correlation between the strength of a state's gun legislation and the number of firearm-related fatalities. There are conflicting reports claiming that allowing concealed-carry of weapons actually leads to a decrease in crime and that more gun laws do not lead to a reduction in gun crimes. However, these studies [PDF] only focus on the rate of crime and fail to consider that while the prevalence of guns in public may not increase crime, it does intensify the crimes that occur. Furthermore, there are studies [PDF] indicating that carrying guns in public is not an effective form of self-defense.

While there is a strong argument for restricting guns in public, any limitations must be balanced with the right of self-defense. The fundamental policy aim behind the Second Amendment is the inherent right of self-defense. This right cannot be fully realized if there is a categorical ban on the possession of guns in public. The court in Wollard stated that in order to effectively secure the rights of self-defense, the Second Amendment's protection must be extended beyond the home. This same notion was articulated by the court inMoore, which stated, "[T]o confine the right to be armed to the home is to divorce the Second Amendment from the right of self-defense."

Given the need for a balanced approach, a complete ban on gun possession in public would infringe on the citizen's Second Amendment rights whereas an absolute right to carry guns in public would jeopardize public safety. Instead, states like New York and Maryland have appropriate statutory schemes that limit public possession of guns to individuals who demonstrate a "proper cause" for carrying a gun in public. These statutes require "a showing of the need for self-defense distinguishable from the greater community." An individual must demonstrate a special need for self-defense based on an objective threat to her safety. The reason such a statutory scheme provides the perfect balance is because it preserves the right of self-defense to those individuals who show a need while protecting the public by limiting the number of concealed carry permits that are issued.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

George W. Bush – President George Bush had his share of detractors during his time in office. Sentiment against his father aside, Bush had his own negative impact on people’s perception of him. The truth is that his legal troubles started long before the whole weapons of mass destruction problem came to light. Bush was arrested at the age of 20 for some drunken antics with friends, which resulted in the group stealing some items from a department store. The charges were dropped. In 1976, however, Bush was cited for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated near his family’s Kennebunkport home. The drunk-driving conviction alone, nor his acknowledgement that he overused alcohol until age 40, are not enough to count the younger Bush out entirely, but there additional concerns about his substance use. Some sources indicate that the former President may have used drugs like Cocaine, which could be problematic for passing standardized FBI background screenings.

Attempts to draw parallels between our political debates and Nazi Germany are, as isoften lamented, a dime a dozen in contemporary discourse. Rarely, however, do they run to more than 200 pages, plus bibliography.

That distinction lies with a new book just published by the Independent Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Oakland: Stephen Halbrook’s Gun Control in the Third Reich. Oh no, you think. Oh yes, say the book’s marketers, who are not shy at all about framing the Nazi’s disarming of Jews and other political enemies as a giant, .950 caliber warning shot amid efforts in Washington and some states to pass new regulations on firearms. From the dust-jacket blurbs for the book:

“It provides a timely reminder that self-defense and the right to bear arms are fundamental human rights.” — Robert Cottrol, George Washington University law professor

“Halbrook’s important research should inform our contemporary debate on gun control.” — Steven Bowman,University of Cincinnati professor of Judaic Studies

“Everyone, including advocates of gun controls, should find this pioneering and thought-provoking book essential reading.” — James Jacobs, New York University law professor

Dr. Ty L. Bullard claimed in an op-ed in The Charlotte Observer last week that a local law enforcement officer in North Carolina told students in a state-mandated concealed carry handgun class to store firearms "under the bed, preferably loaded."

In a column called "What I learned in concealed carry class," Bullard, a native Texan and clinical assistant professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, wrote:

Perhaps most shocking, though, was the advice we received from a practicing law enforcement officer regarding the storage of firearms: under the bed, preferably loaded. I'm not kidding. Fifty or so families, many of whom we must presume have children in the home, walked out of that classroom with the understanding that the proper way to store your guns was in a location that is within reach of a child, and loaded. No gun safe. No trigger lock.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

An autopsy report for the 19-year-old woman allegedly slain by a homeowner while possibly trying to get help after an accident shows she was shot in the face, not at close range.

Renisha McBride was killed Nov. 2 in Dearborn Heights, Mich. She had a car accident in neighboring Detroit earlier in the night, and her family believes she went to a house seeking help after her phone died. She was shot in the face at the home and died.

In an autopsy report from the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office, her death was ruled a homicide.

“There was an entrance shotgun wound to the face, with no evidence of close-range discharge of a firearm noted on the skin surrounding this wound," the report states.

McBride's clothing was wet, the report also reveals.

The homeowner, a 54-year-old man who lives alone, believed someone was breaking and entering the night McBride found his doorstep.

"On that night he was woken up. ... Everything was dark in the house, and he was awoken by sounds of a person or persons trying to get into his home," said his lawyer, Cheryl Carpenter.

At first, the trigger-happy, lawful gun owner turned murderer said it was an accidental discharge.

A Delmar Township man was the victim of an accidental shooting on Wednesday, Nov. 6.

Timothy Bowers, 41, of Wellsboro, was allegedly cleaning a firearm at his friend's residence on Stony Fork Road. As Bowers was attempting to clear the gun by pulling the slide back to eject the live round, the slide slipped from his hand, closing the action. Bowers' hand was reportedly on the trigger, which shot a single round into his left leg.

A legislator whose concealed weapons permit was revoked for lying about a long-ago rape case can still legally carry hidden guns – because Idaho is the only state that exempts elected officials from the permit law.

The case of state Rep. Mark Patterson, R-Boise, is bringing new attention to the 1990 Idaho law providing the exemptions, and some Idaho lawmakers say it’s time for a change.

Patterson is mulling an appeal of his permit revocation; the Idaho Statesman reported on Sunday that the Ada County Sheriff revoked his permit after discovering that he lied twice, in 2007 and 2012, on his permit application, which asked if he had ever had a withheld judgment for a felony offense. Patterson didn’t disclose his 1974 guilty plea and withheld judgment for assault with intent to commit rape in a Florida case. He was acquitted in another, unrelated forcible rape case three years later.

The Idaho permit application asks, “Have you ever had an entry of a withheld judgment for a criminal offense which would disqualify you from obtaining a concealed weapons license?” Patterson twice answered no.

Three men, including two members of a Brooklyn rock band, are dead after a fellow musician shot them to death in their East Williamsburg apartments before turning the gun on himself, according to various news reports in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

Quoting a law enforcement official, the Wall Street Journal said that the musician, a onetime affiliate of the band, used a .308-caliber rifle as he moved from floor to floor of the apartment building to find and shoot members of the Yellow Dogs. According to the New York Times, he also killed a third man and wounded another in the rampage, the article said.

The gunman's body was found on the roof of the building, with the rifle nearby, according to the WSJ article.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Actually, as we've seen in recent reports, the true number of accidental firearm deaths is double that. That would put us right after Fire/Burns.

But, what's the point anyway? Is all this to say the numbers of accidental shooting deaths we have are fine and dandy? They're dwarfed by car accidents and poisonings and falls, they must be acceptable?

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Naturally these idiots are so excited about their new gun they don't care about safety. It's all just good fun, right?

The gun-rights fanatics are telling us that DMLS (direct metal laser sintering) is just the next step of the plastic 3D printing that was all the rave about a year ago. I'm not so sure that's the case. Even the machine used to print with plastic was prohibitively expensive at about $200,000. Imagine what the metal one costs, which is used to make precision parts for airplanes and surgical tools.

The real problem with all this is not the possibility of flooding the market with untraceable firearms manufactured in people's basements, that's not going to happen. The real problem is what the discussion says about the gun-rights advocates. It says they are not concerned at all about the problem of gun violence. They laugh in our faces when we talk about twice as many kids being killed in gun accidents than was previously thought. They scoff at the suggestion that gun owners need to be more responsible in the way they store their firearms in order to prevent theft. They refuse outright any attempt to close the private-sale loophole.

Instead of even admitting there's a problem, they offer the Utopian future of 3D metal printing for weapons so the killing can continue.

Local news reportsThe investigation into a Waterville man who was accidentally shot in the face Wednesday night will be reviewed by the district attorney, police said Friday.Dale Poulin, 31, of Ash Street, was shot while showing his hunting rifle to some friends about 9 p.m. at an apartment at 218 College Ave.Police said the group was exchanging hunting stories when Poulin went outside and brought in a .270-caliber hunting rifle.The bullet went through Dale Poulin’s chin and appears to have exited by his left eye, Waterville police Chief Joseph Massey said Friday. The bullet then passed through the bill of his cap and into the ceiling of the apartment.“The investigation indicates it didn’t go off by being dropped,” Massey said Friday afternoon. “One of the last things that we need to do is sit down with the D.A. to make sure that they don’t feel there’s a possibility of a criminal charge. It doesn’t appear that there might be, but that will be a final decision by the D.A. once all the reports are in.”Massey said Thursday that at one point, Poulin put the barrel of the rifle under his chin and pulled the trigger.

When the officers spoke with people at the scene Wednesday night, they said Poulin had come to visit earlier in the night and had walked in with a bottle of whiskey, Massey said.

“It’s just one of those unfortunate things where they start drinking and they’re talking about hunting and someone goes out and gets their hunting rifle out of their vehicle and just do things with a firearm that you shouldn’t do when you’re in that kind of situation,” he said. “Alcohol and firearms don’t mix.”